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2012: The long way home

BACHMANN:Politico writes that the current media and political environment -- cable news, talk radio and the Internet -- means that if Michele Bachmann runs, she’ll be doing more than just highlighting her irrelevance like conservative provocateurs of past cycles.

BARBOUR: “Potential Republican presidential candidate Gov. Haley Barbour is stepping up criticism of President Barack Obama's actions in Libya, saying Obama hasn't shown leadership but is treating the U.S. as ‘one of the boys’ on the international scene,” the AP writes.

DANIELS: The five-week standoff at the Indiana statehouse, in which legislative Democrats walked out, may affect Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels’ presidential prospects, WTHR reports. Daniels said that the possibility that the legislative session will be extended until Democrats return “complicates” any decision he might make on whether to run for president.

GINGRICH: “Newt Gingrich could find it's not so easy to go home again,” AP writes. “The former House speaker is using Georgia to anchor his presidential campaign strategy. He's counting on his old home state to provide a crucial base of support and a backdrop to help him escape the stigma of Washington insider at a time when the public detests anything linked to the capital or its levers of power. But Georgia is no sure bet for Gingrich. ‘Newt's been gone from Georgia for quite a while now. ... And the shelf life in politics is pretty short,’ says state Sen. Don Balfour.”

Newt Gingrich told the Republican Women’s Club in Greenville, South Carolina that President Obama is failing in Libya. The AP writes that Gingrich “says the president has allowed others to take the lead on the military crisis in Libya and left Americans confused about the country's role in the world.” Gingrich’s statement comes two days after Gingrich had to clarify his own position on Libya, saying that he supported military intervention with the goal of getting rid of Col. Khaddafy, but not in the case of a humanitarian mission.

Vanity Fair reports that Gingrich’s older Tweets on such subjects as his like of Reese’s peanut butter cups and peanut butter eggs, have disappeared.

HUCKABEE: Mike Huckabee leads the field in a new Gallup poll, garnering 19% of respondents, followed by Mitt Romney with 15%.

HUNTSMAN: The so-called “campaign-in-waiting” for U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman has hired media buyer and digital strategist Kyle Roberts, who is the president of the single largest political media buying operation of the 2010 election cycle, the Washington Post’s Cillizza reports. Roberts worked for Sens. Marco Rubio (FL) and Jerry Moran (KS) and California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman.

PAUL: Ron Paul told reporters yesterday that he and his son, Sen. Rand Paul, have never discussed whether Rand should run for president. This came hours after Rand Paul said there was a 50-50 chance one of them would run for president, the AP writes.

PAWLENTY: Tim Pawlenty at first said that he didn’t know whether President Obama bypassed Congress in launching a no-fly zone over Libya, but later clarified that statement, saying, “I think we need to make sure we don’t tie the executive or the commander in chief’s hands so tightly that he or she can’t respond in an emergency quickly or in a situation that deserves and needs a quick response.”

ROMNEY: This sounds fun: “Mitt Romney is sketching a path to the GOP nomination that looks nothing like the one blazed by Republicans before him,” Politico’s Martin writes. “Romney’s plan, by necessity, more closely resembles the outline of the epic 2008 Democratic presidential primary than the GOP’s recent victory-by-early-knockout design. With glaring weaknesses in two of the traditional early states, an increased number of contests allocating delegates on a proportional basis and a capacity, thanks to his own deep pockets and a growing stable of donors, to raise significant cash, Romney’s second White House bid relies on outlasting the competition."

The Atlantic points out that, in a list of states Mitt Romney told major fundraisers were most important to him, Iowa was missing, while Romney said he “needed” to do well in New Hampshire and Florida.

SANTORUM: Rick Santorum, so far one of the champions of social issues among likely presidential candidates, says he looks forward to capitalizing on the nation’s shift to foreign affairs, which he says will highlight his knowledge of foreign policy as a senator for 12 years, as well as what he says will be the relative weakness of his potential rivals on those issues, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writes.